Mukondeni Village Pottery was established by Sarah Munyai. She started the project in 1980, to sustain and preserve an ancient craft.
Munyai's daughter Certina has now taken over the daily running of the project. Here a group of 15 women produce traditional and contemporary Venda pots, fire places, bowls, clay beads and objects as decorations for their homesteads at Mukondeni Village, which is near Elim in Northern Limpopo.
For centuries Venda women have made functional pots for eating, storing, serving, cooking and keeping beer. They have long decorated them with natural colours and burnt local grasses to bake them. As such, this pottery tradition dates all the way back to Mapungubwe. The women at Mukondeni dig their clay from a river in their village, which they believe is extremely robust for pot-making. These products are then decorated with geometric designs and various symbols such as the fish, which is a spiritual symbol of the region. They decorate the items using graphite and ochre from the Luonde Mountains.
The pottery village and the homesteads of some of the women is open to visitors.